Diaries

I only started reading it because it seemed the best of a bad bunch in my holiday book bag but no more than 10 pages in I was laughing out loud, smiling inanely to myself, and generally reveling in everything that this man was.

He was a lot of things, both good and bad which are well documented, but for all his 'qualities' his charm shines through via his amazing first perspective writing style.

It was with great sadness and reluctance that I read the last pages having built a great affection for this character and an education in the mechanisms of government.

If there is one thing I would knock of this book is that there is quite obviously a lot of interesting detail missing which I assume was far to delicate at the time.

I will get the other book of Diaries and the audio book of these diaries read by the great man himself but will treasure this through the years. Magical.


Superbly read by the 'noel coward' of politics   June 21, 2001
 9 out of 11 found this review helpful

Alan Clark reads from his diaries. His voice and intonation are sublime. The epitome of an old Etonian, he nonetheless effs and blinds his way through the cream of British political establishment of the 80s and 90s. Sadly this is a rather clumsy edit of the written diaries and leaves many references incomprehensible to the untutored ear (for example TK means Tom King, The Lady means Maggie Thatcher). There are no political autobiographies that make you laugh out loud except AK Diaries and few that give you an unexpurgated view of the personalities. No quarter sought or given in this giant of audio books... Now he is no longer with us, when I finished this tape yesterday I was deeply sad that he did not record the whole of his diaries. Scoop up this gem now - because you're worth it and so was he.